I've been feeling rather piano-deprived recently. There just haven't been that many appealing recitals scheduled in London.

And with the Wigmore Hall only half full for tonight's concert by Nelson Goerner it's hardly fair to accuse promoters of ignoring public demand. It seems that only aging legends have a guaranteed audience in London. But Nelson Goerner deserves to be more widely-appreciated.

As does Domenico Scarlatti, a composer we hear painfully little of. Goerner's thoughtful romantic interpretation crafted the four tiny Scarlatti sonatas into a single slow-quick-slow-coda sweep with intelligence and taste. Highlighting the structural and harmonic idiosyncrasies with dynamic nuances that are beyond the capabilities of a harpsichord performance, he displayed just how staggeringly inventive Scarlatti was.

His Beethoven sonata no 31 advanced with a studied inexorability. Cool but not detached, Goerner's restrained palette lent it a tragic dignity and poise.

There were hints of the exuberance Goerner is capable of in his final Scarlatti sonata. But the full picture only came with the Brahms sonata no 3, written with an uncharacteristic youthful vigour that in Brahms flashed only briefly. Goerner dived in with what amounted to a physical attack on the piano, and drew out the work's violent contrasts fearlessly. But he could draw back into dreamy introspection instantaneously, and with enormous charm. Virtuosity was so modestly deployed, so thoroughly absorbed into the texture of the work, that it was never mere display.

It's rare during a piano recital that I don't drift off at some point, but Goerner's performance was so entirely engaging that I was drawn in to every second. Sequinned-jacket showmanship may put bums on seats, but integrity and musicality will win in the end every time.

24 July 2007

Yesterday marked the 250th anniversary of the death of Domenico Scarlatti, an event which has passed without much in the way of musical tribute here.

However the Guardian have managed a timely feature, including some useful web links. And Radio 3 have granted Scarlatti Composer of the Week status (shared with his father Alessandro) and a series of five one hour programmes, available on Listen Again for the next week.

Even this little may be more than Scarlatti himself would have expected:

"Reader,Whether you be dilettante or professor, in these compositions do not expect any profound learning, but rather an ingenious jesting with art, to accommodate you to the mastery of the harpsichord. Neither considerations of interest, nor visions of ambition, but only obedience moved me to publish them! Perhaps they will be agreeable to you; then all the more gladly will I obey other commands to favour you with more simple and varied style. Therefore show yourself more human than critical and then your pleasure will increase. To designate you the position of the hands, be advised that by "D" is indicated in the right, and by "M" the left. Live happily."- D. Scarlatti, 1738